Louis A. Meyer, popularly known by his pen name L.A. Meyer, was a well known author who has written ‘Bloody Jack’ series. Meyer was born in the year 1942 in Johnston, Pennsylvania but spent most of his life in Corea, Maine. He owned an art gallery along with his wife in Bar Harbor, which was known by the name Clair de Loon. They used to sell together framed and matted prints of his artwork. After Meyer fell ill, the Clair de Loon got closed in November, 2013. Meyer had married his love interest from college, Annetje Lawrence in the year 1966 and had two sons who were named Matthew and Nathaniel. Meyer was also a painter by profession. The profession of painting was inherited by his sons, who were also teachers like their mother. Meyer was very fond of writing young-adult historical novels and her wife Annetje would help him in researching historical points for his novels. Meyer attended his high school in Pennsylvania and Florida. He completed his college studies from Florida and went on to join military. He grew up mostly on the U.S Army bases in the American east coast and Germany. In order to avoid death in a foxhole, Meyer joined the U.S Navy during the time of the Vietnam War. After four months of training, he became an officer in the navy and was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet in his first outing. During his tenure as an officer, he did not see any kind of combat and his tour of duty mostly included ports of call in countries like Spain, Italy, France and Malta.

Meyer was a graduate from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature in the year 1964. He later studied graduate art courses at the Columbia University in 1970. Meyer received his MFA in Painting at the Boston University’s Master of Fine Arts program in the year 1973. He worked as a social worker, sweeper and a high school art teacher apart from being an author. He had written two children’s picture books before graduating from the Boston University. Meyer died on July 29, 2014 due to complications from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Meyer had completed the only novel series of his life just before his death and was successful in characterizing ‘Jacky Faber’ very well. His series comprised of twelve novels, which were published from 2002 up to 2014. He invented the character of Jacky Faber while listening to the radio in his workshop. He was listening to British and Celtic music on the radio when he began thinking about Jacky Faber as a character. After seven months of rigorous thinking, bloody Jack was made. Meyer had not published his last novel of the series before dying, but he had completed writing it down. The final installment will be released later this year. Out of the twelve novels, the first two were very successful. Here is a list of characters introduced by Meyer in his novel series:

1. MARY ‘JACKY’ FABER:
Jacky Faber is the protagonist of the series and comes from a middle-class London family. All her family members died in a plague when she was about eight years old. She joins a gang led by an orphan named Rooster Charlie. Later, when Charlie gets killed, she enlists herself as a ship’s boy with the crew of the H.M.S Dolphin.

2. ROOSTER CHARLIE:
Rooster Charlie was so called because of his red-colored hair that used to fell on one side, resembling a rooster. He leads a small gang of orphans and gets killed by an adult for a grudge. He was a close of Jacky, who deeply mourns his death. She takes all his clothes and his knife to begin her life as a boy. She carves the handle of the ship in the form a rooster in order to honor Charlie.

3. JAMES EMERSON FLETCHER:
James is a fellow ship’s boy along with Jacky on the H.M.S Dolphin. He comes from a higher middle class family. He becomes a close friend of Jacky and after knowing her secret, he vows to keep it a secret.

4. LIAM DELANEY:
Liam is an Irishman and a skilled sailor. He is Jacky’s overseer and her ‘sea dad’. He always helps her and gives her tips about how to rescue herself from ill people. Liam remains unaware of Jacky’s gender until it is publicly announced.

5. MUCK:
Muck is corpse seller and murder people in order to sell their corpses. He took away the dead bodies of Jacky’s family members when they died and also killed Rooster Charlie and sold his dead body as well.

The first novel of the series was titled ‘Bloody Jack’. It was published in the year 2002 and revolved Jacky Faber. The plot of the novel is described as full of plague. People are dying of the epidemic and there is no place to go. Jacky loses all of her family members in the epidemic and enters a gang of orphans. She struggles to survive on the streets as an orphan and takes shelter in a gang led by Rooster Charlie, whom she admires as an elder brother. Rooster Charlie is murdered by a corpse seller and Jacky takes all his clothes and hides her identity of being a girl. She joins a ship to serve as ship’s boy where is renamed as ‘Bloody Jack’. Although she is thirteen years old, she is very courageous and saves his friend Jaimy by killing a pirate with the help of a plundered pistol. Amazed by her bravery, the crew members of the ship name her Bloody Jack.

The second novel of the series named ‘The Curse of the Blue Tattoo’ and was published in the year 2004. In this novel, Jacky is sent to the Lawson Peabody School in Boston, which is specifically for young girls after her secret of being a girl comes out. It was believed that she would be trained to become a fine lady by learning the habits of high society. But, it all seemed too difficult to her as she was habituated to grow as an orphan and fight pirates. As a result, everything she does goes miserably wrong. She seems very disgusting in her table manners as well as her French is not so good. Her embroidery is also very deplorable. The Blue anchor tattoo on her arm looks too shabby. Despite her best efforts, Jacky does not seem to come out of trouble to become more ladylike.

The novels of Meyer were very well praised by all the readers. He was motivated to write more such novels and was helped by her wife and sons. Meyer will always be remembered for his work and for being a true gentleman.

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Did You Know…

After graduating from school, Dan Brown then went to Amherst College to obtain a degree in English and Spanish. He graduated in the year of 1986 and then later spent numerous years trying to get himself established as a singer cum songwriter and pianist, but unfortunately was met with very minimal success.